GARRETT - The Decker family made its living during the 1960s and '70s stripping coal from the earth on its mountaintop land in southwestern Pennsylvania.

When the family scraped away the last ounce of coal, it replaced the topsoil and turned to cattle farming. As far as fuel, the land on its windswept ridge in Somerset County had tapped out - or so the family thought.

All the while, another energy source was whipping around them, streaming down the Allegheny Mountain corridor that separates the farm from Mount Davis, the highest point in Pennsylvania.

It was wind. And today, the Decker land is again providing fuel for homes - converting gusts of air into electricity through eight giant wind turbines standing atop the family's old strip mine.

Green Mountain Wind Farm - the first commercial wind-energy project in Pennsylvania - went online in May and is producing enough juice to power several thousand homes in this state and New Jersey.

And there is plenty more where that comes from, energy analysts say. Six other wind farms are in development in Pennsylvania, a state long dependent on waste-producing energy sources such as coal and nuclear power.

"It's a wonderful irony that this same geology that produced coal is producing energy, now, from wind," said Thomas J. Tuffey, director of a public-private "sustainable energy" fund that is investing in a wind project near Wilkes-Barre.

High elevation and prevailing winds blowing over the Alleghenies from the west are what drew engineers from National Wind Power to the Deckers' land.

The British-owned company guessed that the gusts blowing over the farm might be powerful and consistent enough to keep huge fiberglass blades spinning. And if the blades could turn, they could be linked to generators, which could be hooked to a substation, which could feed electricity to western Pennsylvania's power network.

The interest in Pennsylvania in harnessing wind - which has been spinning turbines out West for decades - has as much to do with energy markets and consumer choice as the propitious positioning of the Decker farm.

"The first thing to look at is growing demand for green power, and the increased retail choices that consumers now have in Pennsylvania," said Christine Real De Azua, a spokeswoman for the American Wind Energy Association, an energy trade group. "People just want cleaner air."

When the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission started deregulating the state's electric industry three years ago, the state's consumers were among the first in the nation to begin shopping for their own electricity supplier, using criteria such as price and environmental concerns.

So far, nearly 500,000 Pennsylvanians have opted to switch energy providers, and about 20 percent of those have chosen some form of "clean" or renewable energy, such as wind or solar power, the PUC says.

Deregulation allowed companies developing renewable energies to begin actively marketing in the state, said Nora M. Brownell, a PUC member. Before restructuring, "There was no real economic incentive" for companies to invest in renewables, Brownell said. "Left to their own devices, monopolies don't seek innovation or efficiency."

Green Mountain's 10.4-megawatt plant cost about $10 million and generates enough electricity to power 2,500 homes. As long as the wind blows at least 8 mph, the German-engineered turbines - each about 20 stories tall - thrum along quietly, pivoting occasionally when computer sensors detect changes but polluting no air.

The site is commercially successful, its owners say, although they will not release information on revenues raised from its operation.

It has also become a tourist attraction, drawing carloads of curiosity-seekers almost daily, said Irene Decker, whose family leases 3 acres to the companies that run the wind farm. A woodworker who sells hand-carved miniature windmills from a shop in his home said he can't keep them on his shelves.

The farm's success has lent momentum to other wind projects in the works in Pennsylvania.

"Green Mountain is a great example of the modern wind farm," said Sam Enfield, whose company, Atlantic Renewable Energy, is developing a 15-megawatt wind farm just one county over from Green Mountain's.

Enfield said deregulation has much to do with growing interest in wind energy in Pennsylvania. He also cites the creation of sustainable energy funds, a product of the state's restructuring agreements with electric utilities. Pennsylvania has four such funds with projected capital of about $65 million, designed to provide startup money for development of renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar and methane gas released from landfills and sewage treatment plants.

"I also think we're starting to see people realizing that wind power is predictable in terms of its costs, and it can be produced and sold at reasonable prices," Enfield said.

Construction on Atlantic Renewable's Fayette County project should begin this year, Enfield said.

"Pennsylvania, and southwestern Pennsylvania in particular, can yield hundreds of megawatts of wind power," he said.